Sonnets and Substitutes

Jackie ♦ January 29, 2010 ♦ 7 Comments

Today my own girls are off school, so I’m taking them on a fun adventure with a dear friend and her two girls. While I’m gone, here’s what my English 11 students will be working on with their substitute present. I posted it all on my website last Saturday night and had the links in my back pocket for months, just waiting for the right moment. This is what a class can look like in a 1:1 school when the teacher isn’t there. I’m very lucky!

***********

Hi students,

First, read The Windhover, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favorite poets. Read the poem once through, without looking at the annotations the site gives you. Then listen to the recording of the poem being read aloud. Then read the poem a third time, checking the annotated words. Then read the poet’s biography, which you will find by clicking the link under the picture of GMH to the right of the poem.

Next, either in pairs or alone, answer the four discussion questions in a Word document (you’ll find the discussion questions menu right above the poem).

Next, copy the poem into your Word document, and highlight or circle or otherwise mark, in separate colors, all examples of assonance, alliteration and consonance you find. Write a few sentences about the sound effects in the poem, and their connection to the subject (the bird itself) and the form (the sonnet).

Finally, read another sonnet about a bird, Robert Frost’s The Oven Bird. Copy this poem into your document as well and annotate it. Under "Teaching Tips" above "The Windhover," you should answer the third question, comparing the two sonnets, adding your own thoughts as well.

Anything you don’t complete should be completed for homework. In addition, you should continue your work with your assigned sonnet, thoroughly annotating it and beginning notes on the major themes, devices and images present in the sonnet.